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Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Pakistani military engagement: Walking a fine line between Saudi Arabia and Iran

Pakistan is emerging as an important military player in the
Gulf as its struggles to balance complex relations with regional rivals Saudi
Arabia and Iran and diverging approaches by different branches of its government.

Pakistan’s military engagement with the Gulf goes far beyond
increased involvement in a Saudi-led, 41-nation military alliance that
officially was established to counter terrorism, but is widely suspected to
also be a bid to garner support for the kingdom’s troubled intervention in
Yemen and create an anti-Iranian Sunni Muslim grouping.

As it discusses the deployment of troops to the Saudi-Yemeni
border and a senior, recently retired Pakistani military commander appears
poised to take command of the Riyadh-based alliance, Pakistan alongside Turkey
and China is also emerging as a more cost-effective supplier of military hardware
to a region that is home to the world’s largest arms importers.

"You can’t afford having these very expensive contracts
with western companies and contractors, so what (the Gulf) will do is go toward
cheaper contractors, so that’s why they are looking towards China, towards
Pakistan, towards Turkey – it’s just the natural move.,” Andreas Krieg, a
professor at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom’s Joint Command and
Staff College, told The
National.

Pakistani engagement in terms of troops may be most advanced
with Saudi Arabia, while Qatar appears focused on cooperation in development
and production of hardware. “Over the last two years the Qataris have really
turned their backs towards the West and looked toward the East, as all the Gulf
countries are doing right now,” Mr. Krieg said.

Qatar is discussing with Turkey and Pakistan joint
production of new defence systems, including Turkey’s T-129 attack and reconnaissance
helicopter. Qatar has also expressed interest in the fifth generation JF-17
fighter jet which Pakistan developed with China. Pakistani pilots of the JF-17
last year demonstrated their skills in a display in Qatar. The Pakistan Ordnance
Factory, moreover, recently opened a marketing and sales office in Dubai.

Similarly, Turkey last year deployed
3,000 ground troops as well as air and naval units, military trainers and
special operations forces to a newly created base in Qatar.

Pakistani engagement in the Middle East has a long and
storied history. It dispatched pilots in 1969 to fly Saudi air force Lightning
jets that repulsed a South Yemeni incursion into the kingdom’s southern border.
In the preceding years, Pakistan had helped the kingdom attempt to build its
first war warplanes and trained Saudi pilots. Pakistani pilots again flew missions during
the 1973 Middle East War in defense of Saudi Arabia’s borders.

Pakistan bolstered its position over the following years with
military missions in 22 countries, training facilities for the region and by
becoming the world’s largest exporter of military personnel. Pakistanis currently
provide training to armed forces in various Gulf countries and thousands serve
in Gulf uniforms in many of the region’s militaries, including entire
battalions of Pakistanis in the Saudi military.

Historically, Pakistan’s largest contingent of 20,000
soldier was initially based
in the 1970s in the triangle where the borders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and
Israel bump up against each other. Pakistani combat troops were also dispatched
to the kingdom after a group of religious Saudi militants attacked the Grand
Mosque in Mecca in 1979.

More Pakistani troops were dispatched in 1990 to ostensibly
protect the Muslim holy cities in the kingdom as part of the Pakistani
military’s circumvention of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s inclination to
include a Pakistani contingent in the US-led coalition assembled to roll back
the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

Ironically it is Mr. Sharif who 25 years later appears to be
circumventing. This time it would be to circumvent a refusal by parliament in
2015 to contribute troops to the Saudi war in Yemen despite Pakistan being the world’s
foremost beneficiary of Saudi largesse and its dependency on remittances

Ironically, Mr. Sharif’s willingness in 2015 to comply with
the Saudi request was opposed by Pakistani corps commanders, including Lieutenant
General Qamar Javed Bajwa. That was before General Bajwa succeeded General
Raheel Sharif (no relative of the prime minister) as commander-in-chief. In
contrast to General Bajwa, General Sharif is believed to have favoured deploying
troops in support of Saudi Arabia.

“Yemen was hotly debated within the military. Ultimately the
military feared that there would be a sectarian backlash within the military
itself if it got involved in the Saudi-Iranian proxy war in Yemen,” said
Abdullah Gul, the son of former Islamist ISI chief, Hamid Gul, who maintains
close ties to the command of Pakistan’s armed forces.

Those concerns appear to have been abandoned with the
likelihood of a Pakistani combat brigade being sent to areas of the
Saudi-Yemeni border vulnerable to attack by the anti-Saudi Houthis as well as
jihadi groups. The deployment would not violate the Pakistani parliament
resolution as long as Pakistani troops remain on the Saudi side of the border.

General Sharif may be rewarded for his support of the Saudis
by taking over the command of the Riyadh-based military alliance, dubbed the
Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism.

General Raheel’s appointment would give the alliance credibility
it needs: a non-Arab commander from one of the world’s most populous
Muslim countries who commanded not only one of the Muslim world’s largest
militaries, but also one that possesses nuclear weapons.

Yet, accepting the command risks putting Pakistan more
firmly than ever in the camp of Saudi-led confrontation with Iran that Saudi
political and religious leaders as well as their militant Pakistani allies
often frame not only in geopolitical but also sectarian terms.

Pakistani Shiite leaders as well as some Sunni politicians
have warned that General Raheel’s appointment would put an end to Pakistan’s
ability to walk a fine line between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Pakistan
borders on Iran and is home to the world’s largest Shiite minority.

General Raheel has reportedly told his Saudi counterparts
that he would seek to involve Iran in the alliance. Similarly, General Bajwa
appeared to be hedging his bets by
declaring that “enhanced Pakistan-Iran military-to-military cooperation
will have a positive impact on regional peace and stability.”

Saudi conditions for a reconciliation with Iran appear to
all but rule out any effort by General Raheel and complicate General Bajwa’s
balancing act.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, in a speech last
month’s Munich Security Conference, charged that “Iran remains the biggest
state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Iran has as part of its constitution
the principle of exporting the revolution. Iran does not believe in the
principle of citizenship. It believes that the Shiite, the ‘dispossessed’, as
Iran calls them, all belong to Iran and not to their countries of origin. And this
is unacceptable for us in the kingdom, for our allies in the Gulf and for any
country in the world.”

Mr. Al-Jubeir stipulated that “until and unless Iran changes
its behaviour, and changes its outlook, and changes the principles upon which
the Iranian state is based, it will be very difficult to deal with a country
like this.”

The possible deployment of troops and General Raheel’s
appointment comes as the Pakistani parliament is forging closer relations with
its Iranian counterpart in an effort to nurture economic and political
cooperation.

It also comes in the wake of the deportation
by Saudi Arabia of 39,000 Pakistanis as part of a crackdown on militants
and the arrest and alleged torture of Pakistani transgenders in the kingdom.

Transgenders may not garner significant public empathy in
conservative Pakistan but workers’ rights do, particularly at a time of reduced
remittances. “The government and the military are walking a tightrope that is
dangerously balanced both in terms of domestic as well as in terms of
geopolitics,” said one Pakistani political analyst.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile